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What does it mean to be `progressive?' It means that if you're a musician who has attained a certain level of skill and sophistication on your instrument or `axe,' you refuse to compromise this in order to sell more records to the inevitable millions of cretins more interested in fashions and image and lengths of hair and number of tattoos and nose rings. It also means that if you know that it takes a certain level of complexity to make good music, you also refuse to compromise that. It means if you're Yes you refuse to sound like Foreigner; if you're Sonny Rollins you refuse to `adjust' your style towards Kenny G.; and if you're National Health, you refuse to play things that sound like "Karn evil 9," and "Lucky Man," just to get on the radio-o.

Sometime in the not-so-distant mid `70s, keyboard wizard and future Bruford bandmate Dave Stewart, six-string satan Phil Miller, and skin ace Pip Pyle, three fourths of the already fantastic fusion group "Hatfield and the North," decided to not compromise and keep going in a synergistic negentropic (as Buckminster Fuller would say) direction and expand rather than contract their musical horizons. The result: National Health, one of the most brilliant progressive jazz-rock groups to ever grace the face of this earth. What do they play? Instrumentals and more majestic instrumentals, full of invention, wit and sophisticated musicianship, and including even some occasional singing. But whereas the singing on some progressive records (like Annete Peacock's on Bruford's "Feels Good to Me") sounds pretentiouis and annoying, the beautiful, angel-voiced singing on National Health's tunes by Amanda Parsons is as seamlessly integrated into the compositions as you can get. Dave Stewart unleashes more of the Lucifer in him than on any previous record, unfurling solos Keith Emerson could only dream about, and Phil Miller proves, once and for all, that he's the most tasteful, cliche-terrorist to ever plug in a guitar. Pip Pyle handles these odd-metered songs like he was playing them in his diapers anticipating everything Bruford did in his band a couple of years later.

What you get on this compilation is all 3 of National Health's records on 2 cds packed to the hilt (almost 80 minutes of amazing music on each CD), and also some additional material the band did in tribute to Alan Gowan and written by him (excellent stuff). If you're a fan of progressive jazz-rock or just plain excellent musicianship and uncompromised artistry, this is the best $30 you will ever spend.

A FANTASTIC, FANTASTIC GROUP. Anyone who doesn't appreciate a group this good doesn't know diddley about music and should be sent to a desert island with only Bruce Springsteen records to listen to. These guys are progressive jazz-rock legends and rightfully so.

This double-cd collecting all three National Health albums (plus an unreleased early fragment as well as a 'reunion' track recorded in 1990)is like finding a satchel full of money: it's a treasurehouse of brilliant, complex, riveting rock/prog/jazz (or whatever else you care to call it) that does more than stand the test of time, it towers over its contemporaries, then and now. This merry band of musical elitists, led by Dave Stewart (whose wryly funny liner notes are alone worth the price of admission) and aided and abetted by Pip Pyle, Phil Miller, John Greaves, Alan Gowen and Neil (Whitesnake) Murray - no, that's NOT a typo - set their sights suicidally high from the outset. Back in the days when punk and disco ruled the realm, they set out to play rock music by and for grownups, combining Stewart's bent for complex and disciplined composition with Gowen's jazz-tinged improv leanings, and if that sounds a bit dryly clinical, trust me: the music on NATIONAL HEALTH COMPLETE is alive with tension and excitement, and it most assuredly rocks! Especially the first two albums which feature long tracks which keep dazzling the listener with every serpentine twist and turn. Musicianship here is frigging PHENOMENAL - and where's the 1979 back issue of GUITAR PLAYER with the Phil Miller cover? (Because the boy flat-out SMOKES on these two discs...) It's a shame that National Health's image as obsessive avant-garde eggheads has continued to restrict awareness of the band to a select few fans. You who've not heard 'em, or even of 'em - or who've been intimidated into thinking this music is too dense to deliver simple listening pleasure - are being cheated, and cheated badly. These boys craft great music, period, and you don't need an engineering degree to fully enjoy it, either. And if - while you're digging some of the most killer progressive music of ANY decade - you happen to have a little of National Health's elitism rub off on you, relax... you can get that off with a little soap and water. An all-time gem.

Ok... your search is over if you are looking for inteligent but nonetheless heart felt music. Of course you already have been through King Crimson, Genesis, Yes and Van Der Graaf Generator and now you are looking for the next step. This is it! These guys have got to be the best english band in that sometimes un-cool nich called 'progressive music'. Forget the labels and just listen to the beauty and raw-ness with your mouth open wide...much the same way you did when you first heard Gentle Giant or Zappa...with the knowledge that you have found something totally new and diferent, and yes, totally ( well, almost ) original. The way music should be. Too bad the music world is headed in some other direction.

Two cds of unearthly compositions with each disc nearing the 80 minute limit. What more can you ask for!!! The music is too complex to describe. Ive played this over and over and it seems I discover new sounds. The exploration and discovery is endless. I just hope they keep on manufacturing this cd because its been out of stock lately and quite hard to find. My buddies have been searching for it in futility so I am compelled to hide my copy in a secured vault, so that's how much sought after this set really is.Dont just dip your toe into it, swim totally and be immersed.

National Health were one of the most technically accomplished, musically sophisticated and just plain inventive bands to emerge from the Canterbury scene. From the lyrical passages in 'Borogoves' and 'Tenemos Roads' to the awesome complexity of "The Collapso" and its electronic remake "The Apocalypso", the range is quite astonishing. When bands like Matching Mole, Soft Machine and Caravan settle into a complex time signature like 13/4 or 7/8, you know you're there for the rest of the track. With National Health you'll be lucky if it lasts more than a few bars. Seriously though, if I had to make do with listening to just album for the rest of my life, this would be it.

If you enjoy this genre, this is not to be missed. This compilation incorporates 3 albums. The second album, "Of Queues and Cures" is worth the price of the set by itself. I was introduced to this music in 1980, and 20 years later, I still listen to it on a regular basis, and there are very few albums I can say that about -- it's that good. These are the tunes starting (and ending) with the two parts of "The Bryden Two-Step." When it was released in 1978, this album contained an incredibly generous 53+ minutes of remarkably consistent and excellent music.

The first album has many wonderful moments, but is not quite as compelling as the second (but very little is, so don't get me wrong, this is exceptional music), and the third, D.S. al Coda, is interesting filler, but not of the quality of the rest. However, "The Apocalypso," an elaboration of "The Collapso" from the second album, is completely excellent.

If you enjoy Bruford's solo albums, Brand X, Yes, King Crimson, etc., I can't recommend this highly enough. My own personal favorite of the genre.

It's a shame to see that this disc is no longer available because National Health recorded some of the best progressive rock music ever. Their sound is truly unique, and to this day no band on this planet is creating music of this caliber. This music is not for the timid or those who don't care for intense compositions or long instrumentals with intricate time changes.

These discs include all three studio Health releases, a few bonus tracks, and humorous liner notes written by Dave Stewart that describe the rise and fall of the band. If you like progressive rock/jazz fusion this is highly recommended and should be required listening. Also, check out Hatfield and the North.

National Health's music seems like a farewell to a lost age. At the end of the 70's, when progressive rock has been stifled to death by the greedy music industry, NH (along with U.K. and perhaps one or two others) was the only remaining true progressive band and have put together all that was great about the music of the past decade into their two or three studio albums. Intricate compositions, complex yet uncluttered arrangements, impossible time signatures, delicate interludes, tight, focused soloing, elements of Canterbury, Symphonic, Classical and Fusion all happily coexist on these recordings. Augmented by a delightlul female three-part chorus and wind instruments, the recordings often have the feel of chamber music and a certain playful surrealism. I like to think of NH as the highest evolution of the Canterbury sound, which builds on (and surpasses) the genuis of bands like Caravan, Egg and Hatfield And The North. This is pure progressive rock at its most sophisticated, minus the pomp.

Get the original albums if you can find them, and if not - this complilation will do just fine. No serious progressive rock collector should be without these essential recordings, which along with U.K.'s two releases close out the decade on a positive note.

National Health produced a fine body of work which was remarkably consistent for its day and has clearly stood the test of time. If the three albums of challenging and thought-provoking music contained in these two CD's is still not enough for you, check out Phil Miller's first solo record "Cutting Both Ways" featuring Dave Stewart, Pip Pyle, Hugh Hopper, Elton Dean and Peter Lemer. It's very much in the same vein, picking up where "D.S. Al Coda" left off.

National Health was a British progressive rock band from 1975 to 1980. It included three former members of Hatfield and the North: guitarist Phil Miller, keyboardist Dave Stewart (the Bill Bruford/Barbara Gaskin one, NOT the guy from Eurhythmics), and drummer Pip Pyle. This 2-CD set includes what appeared at the time to be the entire recorded output of the band, consisting of three albums, a short snippet of an early piece ("Paracelsus") with Bruford on drums, and an epilog ("The Apocalypso", a supersized synths-on-steroids remake of Stewart's "The Collapso"). Since then, some other tapes have been found and released as the "Missing Pieces" and "Playtime" albums.

There's a lot to like in National Health's music, though it's very eclectic and doesn't try hard to be accessible. The individual tracks have to be described as pieces rather than songs, and are mostly instrumentals. I find the one Hatfield album I own to be fairly unlistenable, but I enjoy the first two National Health albums quite a bit. The pieces written by Stewart, which include most of the band's best work, consist of a series of catchy segments, averaging a minute or so long, strung together. Other members' compositions tend to more free-style pieces.

The first album, titled "National Health", is my favorite. Keyboardist Alan Gowen (ex-Egg) and singer Amanda Parsons, both of whom had recently quit the band, rejoined just for the recording. Gowen adds some fine synthesizer playing while Parsons' often wordless vocals add a nice flavor to the sound. "Tenemos Roads" and "Borogoves (Part One)" are the best pieces here, but there's really nothing bad. Bassist Neil Murray was replaced by John Greaves for the second album, "Of Queues and Cures". Highlights include "The Collapso" and "The Bryden 2-Step (for Amphibians)". This album also contains the eight-second masterpiece "Phlakaton", Pip Pyle's vocal equivalent of a drum solo ("Rakka-takka takka-takka bish!"). After "Queues", Stewart left the band and Gowen re-joined, but no more albums were released before the band broke up in 1980. Gowen died of leukemia in 1981, and later that year the band reunited in order to record a bunch of his compositions, which make up the album "D.S. Al Coda". Unfortunately, these pieces just aren't at all memorable, with the notable exception of the striking brass theme on "Portrait of a Shrinking Man".

The album booklet contains Stewart's cranky and humorous detailed history of the band ("One guy came up to me after a gig and said, 'Uh...is it true that Pip Pyle is, uh...entirely made of metal?'"), which is a great read but also makes it clear that the band thought it was better than all other music being produced in the world at the time. Stewart also gives great insight into just how low-paying the life of a second-tier band is.

(1=poor 2=mediocre 3=pretty good 4=very good 5=phenomenal)